


Drape

by CloudySonder



Series: Happy Angel, Happy Demon [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Oneshot, physical affection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 15:06:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19428463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudySonder/pseuds/CloudySonder
Summary: Crowley had developed a tendency to “drape” over Aziraphale. An arm hooked around the back of Aziraphale’s neck, his head resting on the angel’s shoulder.It was rare, at first, but draping on the angel, who gave off a force of warmth, felt like Home.God, Satan, oh fuck it, everyone knew that he wasn't prepared to lose it.(*that* bookshop scene)





	Drape

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my tumblr: inkycomputerkeys!

Crowley had a tendency to “drape” over Aziraphale. An arm hooked around the back of Aziraphale’s neck, his head resting on the angel’s shoulder.

Originally, he had held on to Aziraphale like a snake. He was stable, the arm slithering around Zira’s shoulder bringing him towards Crowley, the light-dark contrast of their jackets glaring. His chin would rest on his angel’s shoulder. Sometimes. Occasionally. Whenever he felt like Zira wouldn’t give him a strange sideways glance for it.

And Aziraphale never did.

He first “draped” over Aziraphale when he was drunk. Shit-faced drunk. Crowley was begging Aziraphale to listen to something (he couldn’t remember what the heaven it was anymore, but it had seemed like life or death then), hoping his message would somehow get through despite his slurred murmurs and frequent trailing off.

Aziraphale was also drunk, but significantly less, so as the alpha in the situation (aka the lesser evil/shit-faced), he had gotten up to get some water (preferably to splash in Crowley’s face to make him sober up). Crowley had seen his angel getting up, leaving him to do god knows what, so he did the only thing he thought of to make him stay: he threw his entire body weight on him and held on.

Zira’s back pressed into Crowley’s chest and stomach and goddammit it if it wasn’t the warmest thing Crowley had ever felt. In his drunken stupor, he felt in his bones this conclusion that felt very much (to him) like the answer to everything. Said conclusion was as follows:

“Aziraphale isn’t warm because he’s a holy angel. He’s warm because he’s Aziraphale.”

Though Crowley would never admit it, he had snuggled into Aziraphale’s warmth, sighing in the smell of old books and cocoa and breathing out wine-flavored clouds.

Aziraphale had sat there, silent and non-judgemental, much like Crowley expected an Angel™️ to do. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but he fell asleep in his angel’s warmth before he got a chance to decipher it.

Lovely. That’s how touching Aziraphale felt. None of the demons in hell cared very much for hugging, or even just touching in general. Everyone was a stranger to one another. There were no allies, no friends, just entities with common enemies. Touching a demon made Crowley feel on guard, like any second could be the second where they decided they didn’t need you anymore. Touching Aziraphale felt like Home.

So Crowley draped on Aziraphale. The top half of his body would act like jelly, and he would lean over on Aziraphale and just feel him, in his everything. Crowley may have always complained about Aziraphale's tweed coat, and it truly _was_ unfashionable, don't get him wrong- he hasn't swerved _that_ far off the path yet -but he loved that tweed coat. Yes, it may have looked like it was in mint condition, but it never was. It smelled like whatever restaurant Aziraphale had been to last, and always had a sort of dust layer on it; the kind that his angel could never quite get rid of on his old books. Miracled-away ink spills were undetectable, but if an identical tweed coat was placed in front of Crowley, he could easily spot every single spill-stain that would've been. 

The tweed coat was Aziraphale, and as he leaned into it, he quickly realized it had become a part of him as well.

When Aziraphale’s bookshop burned down, and Crowley felt for a horrifying period of way-too-fucking-long that Aziraphale, his angel, had burned down with it, that warmth in his chest turned to an inferno, burning him from the inside out.

He screamed, and then he drank, and when he was utterly smashed, there was no one to lean on. His Home had been stolen, his warmth had been frozen, and his angel, oh _his angel,_ was **gone**.

Into thin air.

After 6000 years of outliving people and watching them wither, you’d think Crowley would get used to how quickly their lives ended. But those were humans. They weren’t the one constant that Crowley had since the Beginning. They were entertaining, yes, for how short they lived, with their inventions and knick-knacks and such. But they died so quickly. All the humans would leave him. But not Aziraphale. Never Aziraphale, he thought.

For the first time in his life, Crowley had felt truly alone.

What he found truly strange were that his thoughts didn't drift onto the topic of his angel being smited and evaporating, but that he conjured up the most mundane situations... without Aziraphale. It was as if his subconscious was already starting to try and imagine his life without Aziraphale, already on the last stage of grief. Meanwhile, his conscious was still stuck on the first stage. He was reeling himself forward and backward at the same time, like the world's most fucked up game of tug-of-war. 

He thought of going to the Ritz alone and having the man at the front immediately say "Table for two?"

"No, I'm alone." Even thinking of saying it sent a wave of nausea to Crowley's core.

"Really?" His eyebrows would be raised in that polite-surprised way. "Where's your... partner? You know, we have a saying here now: if you want to find Anthony, follow the white tweed coat..."

The man's voice became echoey in his head, as his conscious took back control. For a blissful second, he distracted himself, pretending that everything was fine, that he was drinking by himself just the way he sometimes did.

He couldn't tell if his underlying nausea was from grief or alcohol. 

No one to lean on. No one to pat him and tell him, "sober up, dear", so he muttered it to himself and downed another shot.

When Aziraphale came back, the draping had increased tenfold. He couldn’t lose him again. He just couldn’t. So he anchored Aziraphale the only way he knew how: he threw his entire body weight on him and held on.


End file.
